atlantis and the atlantic (poem)
by valentinosilkflowers
Summary: Sometimes the most revealing moments are the most fleeting ones. An ode to the art of perception, and the few hours before Santorini - Carter picks Serena up from the Met steps in order to shuttle the two of them off to Greece to search for her father, and something else.


**atlantis and the atlantic**

when you were

all but fifteen,

i found you -

you with the faded blue

and glittering gold,

a long lost relic

from the egyptian sands;

as magnificent

as the roman empire

(though you were helen,

stolen to troy

on a one way voyage.)

you stood

alone in a churning sea,

on regal concrete steps

that you somehow spun into the forbidden city -

midas touch no doubt -

but you seemed as lost

as atlantis,

a fallen angel,

your wings perpetually clipped;

a vain attempt

to keep aphrodite in the realm of the mortals.

you looked at me,

i looked at you,

and silence was our language.

it whispered in my ear,

a murmuring translator

that you were terrified -

so terribly terrified

of the world you cupped

in your hands like a shiny new harry winston -

so terribly so

that a single tear traveled

to your cheek.

and there were emerald whispers

and ruby flames,

for you already had ben franklins

and diamonds

and a black swishy tab of priceless plastic

and too many men,

so really it wasn't awfully fair

that you should not also possess

a blotchy complexion when you were distraught.

but i saw it then

and i see it now

that marilyn would not be monroe

had she known joy of the intangible kind.

and though i was the dangerous atlantic,

too damaging and wrecked to become entangled with,

i took your hand

and led you

to your modern day carriage.

and the sleek black horse with tinted glass

leapt forwards

towards the helipad,

towards the aegean sea,

in search of him -

though really it was _something_ -

and we both dropped pennies

into the vast horizonless fountain

and squeezed our eyes tight

like we were five again

in rome.

(well really, strictly speaking

i was eight three quarters.)

and with the spinning copper,

out tumbled our vows to find _something_ -

regardless -

but just _something_,

so we wouldn't be searching anymore

on a fruitless quest for whatever it was

that we were supposed to be looking for anyway.

* * *

**a/n:** ha so remember me? anyway. so i honestly was going to update all my stories last week, since i'm now on vacation with literally nothing to do except whatever i want to do (la dolce vita right here), but i failed to realize that i hadn't emailed my new chapters to myself so that i could work on them in vacationland, so there they are, sitting pretty on my home mac in their little ms word homes, stuck. and because i feel insanely bad, and also because tumblr is, i regret to say, down at the moment...this was a little present of sorts; a compensation for my insanely bad at updating self.

it's a play on my (soon to be continued i swear to god it's not a oneshot) carterena story atlantis and the atlantic. but it's a poem. the first poem i've ever actually really written, to be honest. i wasn't quite sure what i was doing, but then again, i never really am.

if you wanted a flimsy, godawful translation (because this was even more flowery than usual which, i'm sure, we all thought wasn't even possible):

fifteen-year-old serena is standing on the met steps amid the hustle and bustle of manhattan, waiting for carter. when he sees her, he knows there is a certain lost sentiment that she is feeling, not sure if she is ready to embark on this daddy hunt, and not sure of who she is. she starts crying because she's overwhelmed, but being serena van der woodsen she makes it look like an art, and the girls and women around her envy her with a blind jealousy because they think she has it all - though carter knows better, as he sees a certain sadness in her. he takes her hand and they go into the waiting limo, off to the helipad and take off for santorini, where they are searching for her father in a literal way; but in a figurative way, they are searching for that certain something - whatever that something may be - that will make them feel complete and free.


End file.
